What up, New York Times? (#OWS)

There have been people complaining about the #OWS coverage by the New York Times, saying that it’s dismissive and slanted, generally not reporting enough and, when it does report, looking at things from the perspective of the Bloomberg administration.

I have tried to reserve judgment, although I did notice that the day of the 2-month anniversary of the occupation (a few days after Bloomberg cleared the park), where there were lots of actions and the big march, the NYT didn’t seem to cover anything in the morning at all, whereas the WSJ had live coverage of the hundreds of people trying to close down the exchange and disrupt the morning bell.

And I’m not sure if it’s the reporters or the editors who are responsible for the slanted coverage. It’s sometimes hard to tell.

Except sometimes. Here’s an article about Occupy Frankfurt from two days ago, in which a peaceful protest with a supportive police force is described:

“If all demonstrations went so well we wouldn’t have much to do,” said Michael Jenisch, a spokesman for the Frankfurt Ordnungsamt, or Office of Public Order, which issues permits for public gatherings and has been monitoring the Occupy Frankfurt encampment.

“If they have the staying power, they can camp there all winter,” Mr. Jenisch said. That attitude contrasts with that of the authorities in cities like New York, Oakland or Boston, where the police have evicted protesters from public space, and also with other financial centers in Europe.

That’s all fine, but here’s where I find the coverage outrageous. The article was not on the virtual front page; instead there was a link to the article from the front page, and the teaser line was:

Unlike at other Occupy sites, the Frankfurt protesters are being careful to make their points without inciting police interference.

What? Seriously??

I can’t tell you how often I was down at Zucotti, wondering why there were so many cops there, wasting our tax payer money, when the protesters were so incredibly peaceful. Who incited police interference? Was it the sleeping protesters in tents?

The message is not for protesters, on how to incite police aggression. The message here is for American cops, on how to deal with peaceful protesters. New York Times editors, did you even read your own article?

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They did the same thing with the Madison protests in the spring. It really opened my eyes as to the inaccuracy of “liberal” media reporting. I always trusted NYT as the paper of record, and now I no longer read them after seeing how they omit key details that are in support of the protest movements.

There is nothing like being in the middle of something, knowing the facts, and seeing how inaccurately they are disseminated to make to realize how our media has been completely taken over by corporate interests.

Maybe I’m just cynical, but I find that almost any article in the mainstream media that I know anything about seems riddled with errors. I guess the news can’t be properly peer reviewed, due to the hurry, so this is what we get.

I am in the UK and was at the poll tax riot under Maggie Thatcher. Over the years I have been on a wide variety of demonstrations, peaceful and otherwise (although, if violence does start, I get the hell out as fast as possible).

In my experience, when violence does erupt, the police have always contributed to a greater or lesser extent to the escalation of trouble.

However, one must remember it is the duty of the press to write the copy that they think will sell the most newspapers; this does not equate t writing the most accurate and balanced account possible!